NonALGuidance

Books to Use for PC Creation

PLAYER'S HANDBOOK	PHB
DMG (e.g. Death Domain Cleric & Oathbreaker Paladin)	DMG
MORDENKAINEN'S TOME OF FOES	MTOF
ONE GRUNG ABOVE	OGA
SWORD COAST ADVENTURER'S GUIDE	SCAG
ELEMENTAL EVIL PLAYERS COMPANION	EEPC
THE TORTLE PACKAGE	TTP
VOLO'S GUIDE TO MONSTERS	VGTM
XANATHAR'S GUIDE TO EVERYTHING	XGTE

CLARITY

As an Adventurers League DM I've tended to be a bit more forgiving. In this game, I will be going back to the days of college. This hardcover is excellent, it should take you from 1st level through 11th level. I'm still learning and forgetting the rules, so I may make a judgement call to keep the game going, but please call me on rules that you don't understand or think I'm doing wrong.

That said:

• Ability Scores: Point Buy as per PHB (27 points).
• HPs: Max at level 1 + CON bonus; every new level, roll in game for HP advancement.
• Normal PHB equipment, either roll money or go with starting equipment.
• This is going to be intense. If your character dies - you will be rolling up a new PC of the same level. (More on this during our first game.)
• Old school XP - Monsters killed/avoided + events while attaining goals is divided by number of players for your XP award. This may not be awarded at the end of every session. If you get enough XP to level up, you must have a Long Rest to earn your new level.
• You get to keep your gold & equipment you find! I'm not going to require encumbrance unless it gets crazy.
• Explore the city, there are interesting things you can purchase.
• Factions - They all exist in Chult. There isn't going to be renown or downtime tracking per AL, but they can possibly assist the PCs...or a PC.
• Heavy Armor is very rare (and costly) in Chult. 95° during the day, rarely falling below 70° at night. A day without rain is rare. Be warned on exhaustion effects.
• I posted the Backgrounds available (all from the books above + 2 backgrounds from the Tomb of Annihilation book.)
• If you create a PC from Chult (which is not necessary, the story will provide transport TO Chult.) please let me know.
• For any personal background stories, please add in someone that has died recently that your PC knew.

Q & A

Heavy Armor: If you get it for your starting equipment you may keep it.  You can either sell it (5E selling of equipment is 1/2 price in PHB usually.) and buy other armor at full price that isn't heavy OR keep it and try to maintain it and make CON saves while going through jungle, quicksand, falling into water, exhaustion.

Extra equipment: I would recommend you keep some coin ready within Port Nyarzaru.  There are Chult-specific items you may need/want.   Yes, with the right contacts you can purchase many things like dinosaurs and even some magic weapons (highly specific.)  As you probably can tell from the map on the wiki, this is a hex-crawler for the most part so we will be doing survival checks, food/water/navigation.  There are things in Port N. that can help with a lot of that (guides, equipment.)

Components: For magic, I assume either arcane focus (no components) or components are on your person (initial purchase) and used effectively and picked up while travelling (Oh..a crow feather..cool.)  The exceptions are: a) if captured you don't have them, b) anything of 100 gp or more you do have to purchase & track.  c) in a lot of cases the components aren't consumed, but for example, the Druid Spell 'Snare' consumes 25' of rope each cast. Generally, you shouldn't have to worry about this until 2-3rd level spells and higher.

Languages: You're going to be coming from the Sword Coast, so you can pick general Dwarf/Elf/Goblin/Draconic languages.  Orc writing is based off of Dwarvish, so if you know Dwarf you can read Orc, just not speak it.  The same goes with Ignan/Terran languages and a few others.  That being said, you will be in a place with its own language that you will not know and having a way to understand 'foreign' reading & writing is beneficial/highly recommended (e.g. the 2 backgrounds the book supplies can help with some of that.)  Not leading you astray, but Draconic is generally helpful but depending on your journey, may be useless.

Skills: (Not a question, but while reading the Face question that Brendan asked I wanted to make sure you knew) that Athletics is the only STR-based skill. Athletics is used a lot in Grappling, Shoving attacks (attacker Athletics vs defender Athletics/Acrobatics, defenders choice.)

Guidance: As long as you know the skill check is coming, having someone who can Guidance a check is amazing.  For skill checks: If you and another party member have proficiency in a skill, one may HELP the other (usually the person with the highest +) and that gives Advantage on the roll, they or someone else can then cast Guidance which gives a +1d4.   Resistance is..not as useful.  Maybe to help in specific instances, but I'm not breaking the game by telling you I have never used it.  On the other side, you can't use Guidance for Initiative (while an ability check it is happening too fast for you to cast a spell.) (Caveat:  Lets say in an ambush you are initiating you can cast Guidance on 1 person to help with that roll.) or in occurrences where it doesn't make sense (I'm talking to the King and want to do an Insight check...I don't think he's going to want someone casting a spell.)  Helping with Survival checks and the like are all good and perhaps a pre-cast (lasts 1 minute and requires touch) before talking to someone or doing something you know is happening IS allowed. 

Cleric Spells:  Yes, 3 cantrips and they are locked.  Toll the Dead was a game changer when it came out, it scales great and if casting on something already damaged, uplift to 1d12 (e.g. Great Axe hit.) is amaze balls. I slightly disagree with Dan on Spare the Dying.  Cantrip vs. Limited resource while out in the wilderness. Also, (and I realize that Erik said Life Domain) the Grave Domain has this ability: "In addition, you learn the spare the dying cantrip, which doesn’t count against the number of cleric cantrips you know. For you, it has a range of 30 feet, and you can cast it as a bonus action."  which I have seen come in handy A LOT.  Life Domain is pretty amazing with the  2+ spell level heals and using your Channel Divinity to heal. I will add that Syndra Silvane has indicated that Port Nyarzaru has to deal with constant undead incursions.

Erik, you have your understanding of Cleric spells correct.  You have the full gamat available, replace/refresh on Long Rest.  You can upcast specific spells into other spell level slots (e.g. Cure Wounds at 3rd level, etc.)  There is no 'cure serious wounds, cure critical wounds' it is all cure wounds(1st level) taking up a higher casting slot that scales.    The above being said about Healing Kit: There is an amazing Feat "Healer" that "As an action, you can spend one use of a healer's kit to tend to a creature and restore 1d6 + 4 hit points to it, plus additional hit points equal to the creature's maximum number of Hit Dice. The creature can't regain hit points from this feat again until it finishes a short or long rest."  Which I have seen rogues use to amazing effect.  (move into combat, heal like a low-level cleric then Bonus action disengage and move away from combat.) 

Feats: While only Variant Humans get Feats at first level, you may want to look at Feats you'll get at 4th level as you create your PCs.  Getting the Ability Score Increase (ASI) of 2 points or a Feat is interesting, but some Feats also give +1 in specific stats (Durable, Athlete, Keen Mind to name a few.)

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